Truck Nation
The pickup truck phase remains to be a big chunk of the American new automotive market, although it’s now falling behind SUVs. Vans nonetheless command round 16% of the whole market share within the U.S. Annual gross sales of the entire truck market hover round 2.7 to three.1 million vehicles.
The undisputed king of this phase has all the time been the Ford F-Sequence, holding the crown because the best-selling mannequin for a report 49 consecutive years and because the best-selling mannequin throughout the nation for a whopping 44 years.
Realizing the significance (and reliance) of the nation on its product, Ford takes its vehicles very critically, particularly in terms of testing their capabilities and reliability. Ford makes use of its Michigan Proving Grounds (MPG) as floor zero for all issues truck testing. Susan Regalia, the Operations Supervisor who oversees reliability testing, feels that the general public does not totally grasp what Ford places its autos by way of.
Ford
Constructed Ford Robust
Regalia mentioned folks would usually be shocked to be taught what Ford does to check the automotive’s sturdiness. Particularly, the Blue Oval does not do the simple stuff, opting to check the vehicles because the “most demanding clients would.”
At MPG, the staff condenses 10 years and 150,000 miles’ price of wear and tear and tear into simply 4 months of testing. To attain this, the check mules are virtually all the time consistently in use.
The vehicles endure dyno exams that measure engine efficiency, torque, and rpm, are pushed over several types of tough surfaces, and, after all, river crossings. One of the crucial demanding is Energy Hop Hill, the place the autos attempt to climb up an incline with “steps” like a staircase for automobiles. It is not nearly altering surfaces; Ford additionally conducts these exams underneath load, placing cargo and other people collectively to see how the truck performs at full weight capability.
Ford
Robotic Help
One can be forgiven for pondering that each one these exams can be demanding for human testers, given their severity and tight deadlines. This has prompted Ford to deploy robots at MPG to assist take the load off some human drivers. Actually, now and again, as much as 20 robots could be seen driving across the facility’s high-speed check observe, with Ford claiming that these robots present exact information throughout testing, since they’ll keep a relentless velocity in each check run.
The staff says it is a good combine: actual human enter gives a variety of insights, whereas the robots can deal with the precise information gathering. Ford says people present notion, whereas robots present precision.
Ford
